Dr. Arvind Singhal

Professor of Communication and Director of the Social Justice Initiative

Dr. Arvind Singhal (asinghal@utep.edu) is the Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Endowed Professor of Communication and Director of the Social Justice Initiative in UTEP’s Department of Communication. He is also appointed as the William J. Clinton Distinguished Fellow at the Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock, Arkansas. Singhal teaches and conducts research in the diffusion of innovations, organizing for social change, and the entertainment-education strategy. His research and outreach spans sectors such as health, education, peace, human rights, poverty alleviation, sustainable development, civic participation, democracy and governance, and corporate citizenship.

Singhal is co-author or editor of 11 books – Inviting Everyone: Healing Healthcare through Positive Deviance (2010); Protecting Children from Exploitation and Trafficking: Using the Positive Deviance Approach (2009); Popular with a Purpose (2008); Communication of Innovations (2006); Organizing for Social Change (2006); Entertainment-Education Worldwide: History, Research, and Practice (2004); Combating AIDS: Communication Strategies in Action (2003); The Children of Africa Confront AIDS: From Vulnerability to Possibility (2003); India’s Communication Revolution: From Bullock Carts to Cyber Marts (2001); Entertainment-Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change (1999); and India's Information Revolution (1989). Three of Singhal’s books won awards for distinguished applied scholarship. He has authored 150 peer-reviewed essays in such outlets as the Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Communication Monographs, Health Communication, Communication Quarterly, and Management Communication Quarterly; and over 30 technical and scholarly reports.

Singhal has won Top Paper Awards from the International Communication Association and National Communication Association a dozen times, and Ohio University’s Baker Research Award twice. The Social Science Research Council and the International Communication Association recognized Singhal as the winner of the Communication Research as Collaborative Practice Award in 2009 and the winner of the Communication Researcher as an Agent of Change Award in 2008. The Northwest Communication Association honored him with the 2007 Human Rights Award for Steadfast Commitment to Social Justice, Social Change, and Freedom. Singhal was honored by Ouachita Baptist University as the 2009 Berkitt Williams Distinguished Lecturer and by Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi, as the 2006 Raushni Memorial Deshpande Distinguished Lecturer. In 2005, USC’s Norman Lear Center honored him with the first Everett M. Rogers Award for Outstanding Contributions to Entertainment-Education.

Dr. Singhal's research has been supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, The National Science Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, UNAIDS, UNICEF, and others. He has served as an advisor to the World Bank, the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), UNICEF, UNDP, UNAIDS, UNFPA, U.S. Department of State; U.S. A.I.D., Family Health International, PATH, Save the Children, the BBC World Service Trust, International Rice Research Institute, Voice for Humanity, and private corporations such as Procter & Gamble (U.S.A and Thailand), Telenor AS (Norway), SpareBank (Norway), and others.

He has taught previously at Ohio University, University of Southern California, University of California - Los Angeles, and held visiting professorships at the USC Annenberg School; the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; Royal Roads University, Canada; Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany; Institut Teknologi (Malaysia), Bangkok University (Thailand); and visited and lectured in over 65 countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia, Europe, and North America.